Event

Howard Van Doren Shaw was one of the best known country house architects of his day. In 1913, the Architectural Record wrote about his houses "Mr. Shaw is extraordinarily popular. The number of houses which he designs would be astounding to the architect of any European country and it is sufficiently rare in this country. Mr. Shaw's houses possess to a very considerable extent the merit of being thoroughly livableThese houses are charming and inviting to a degree rarely exceed in American domestic architecture- a fact which justifies Mr. Shaw's success as well as accounts for it." In the year of his death, 1926, Shaw was awarded the American Institute of Architects' gold metal. At the time he was only the fourth American architect to receive this honor. Shaw was one of a group of Chicago architects, that included Frank Lloyd Wright and Dwight Perkins, who were exploring new ideas about interior space and the relationship of interior spaces to the landscape. Shaw did this without ever abandoning the forms and language of traditional architecture. Shaw's houses will be reconsidered in relation to the progressive architectural ideas of his time, examining the idea of originality in his work which made him so widely admired by his peers. The lecture will be given by Stuart Cohen FAIA, who is currently writing a book on Shaw and is the coauthor of two books on historic Chicago houses, North Shore Chicago Houses of the Lakefront Suburbs: 1890-1940 and Great Houses of Chicago: 1871-1921.